Mental Health Treatment Experiences and Expectations in Foster Care: A Qualitative Investigation

This study explores perspectives on mental health treatment experiences and expectations for youth in foster care and their foster parents. In-depth interviews were conducted and identified for major themes: (1) the dual stigma of foster care and mental health care; (2) the lack of engagement in mental health therapy; (3) trust issues with the therapist and other individuals; and (4) the desire to integrate mental health services with primary care services. These results have implications for mental health service delivery and suggest opportunities to improve mental health treatment through an integrated care approach.     

Challenges and Changes in Dutch Family Law

Since the “Divorce Challenge” in the Netherlands, a lot of initiatives have been taken on a political level, from the judiciary and in practice, to improve the situation for children of separation. Experimental legislation is on its way to enable the development of new court procedures. One of its ideas is to introduce a so‐called family's representative. This new professional, a lawyer or mediator, can represent both parents in court or coordinate the entire divorce process, both before and after the court procedure.     

Regionalism: A Singaporean Perspective

Multilateralism versus regionalism: the question is whether to adhere to the arrangements of an all encompassing international organization or to enter bilateral and regional agreements which could potentially upset the multilateral trade apple cart. The heated debate that rages over the merits of either system is dividing the various schools of thought on trade policy. Despite the WTO's increased importance and prominence in the last 50 years, the world has seen a great increase in regional trade agreements (RTAs) which seem to be contradictory to the spirit of trade liberalization. In this article, Lim Chin Beng, former ambassador to Japan and Singaporean chief negotiator for the Japan-Singapore Economic Partnership Agreement (JSEPA)currently under negotiation, discusses these issues and provides an account of Singapore's efforts to harness RTAs to further the multilateral trade agenda. He concludes that regionalism and multilateralism are not mutually exclusive.     

The state of the 'state' in globalization: Social order and economic restructuring in Malaysia

This article asserts that, instead of anticipating or searching for indications of the 'end of the state' in an era of neoliberal globalization, it is more fruitful to examine the relationship between the state and social order, because of the potential to discern the conditions and consequences in which occur the ruling elite's and social forces' resistance to and/or alliance with, transnational capital. A case study of Malaysia is presented to demonstrate the complex and even contradictory ways in which social order is regulated that allows the state to manage demands emanating within and beyond the country. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the different historical junctures in which changing bases of state power, paths of development, and official manipulation of social identities converge in the regulation of social order that facilitates capital accumulation while maintaining state legitimacy in a multi-ethnic context.     

Organized crime and the political-criminal nexus in China

The research goals of this study, undertaken on behalf of the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC), were to describe the evolution of the political-criminal nexus (PCN) in China and predict its development, examine the causes and patterns of PCN in China, assess the anticipated threats of Chinese PCN, and identify options for external factors—inside and outside government—to weaken PCN in China. The researchers used a variety of techniques as part of an overall exploratory methodology, including interviews and field observations in three Chinese provinces. Key informants included law enforcement officers, government officials, scholars, prosecutors, judges, businessmen, and underworld figures. Interviews and site visits were supplemented with the review of a large collection of English and Chinese literature on the subject. The major findings are (1) in China, PCN is primarily a nexus between gangsters and low- and mid-level government officials from the criminal justice system; (2) the Chinese government is concerned with the problem of PCN mainly because it is eroding the authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and not because of the threat of organized gangs to social and economic stability; (3) organized crime in China is going to be a local problem for many towns and cities in the foreseeable future; (4) reasons for the development of PCN in China could be categorized as economic, structural, social/cultural, and psychological/ideological and the impact of PCN could be categorized as social, economic, and political; and (5) several options exist for external governmental and nongovernmental measures to curb or at least control PCN in China, including research, education, and judicial reform.     

Snakeheads,mules, and protective umbrellas: a review of current research on Chinese organized crime

China’s red-hot economy in recent decades has not only brought the country unprecedented wealth and political prominence in the world but also created ample opportunities for criminal enterprises to flourish. A review of recently published literature reveals that two types of transnational criminal activities – human smuggling and drug trafficking – received a fair amount of empirical attention in the research community. Other crimes, however, although carrying equally significant cross-national implications, have received scant attention. Thanks to a handful of empirical studies in recent years, the notion that traditional Chinese crime syndicates dominated transnational criminal activities has largely been dispelled. Most of those involved in transnational crimes (at least in human smuggling and drug trafficking) were found to be otherwise ordinary individuals who exploit their social or familial networks to take advantage of emerging opportunities. The criminal underworld in China appears to be growing along two separate tracks, with transnational organized crimes operating on one track and locally based criminal organizations on the other. Both groups of criminal entities are not known to cross paths in any systemic way. Research on Chinese organized crime (either locally based or transnational) has remained rather limited. Future research needs to emphasize empirical strategies to explore these and other pressing transnational criminal activities, as well as to solidify recent findings.